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Fractale was supposed to be a financial success, but Shinsekai Yori and Aku no Hana had a primary purpose of advertising their source materials. Aku no Hana is probably doing a very good job as lots of viewers seem to be picking up the manga. Even if they're doing so out of a sense of outrage, it's still meeting the objective.

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Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

With a show like Aku no Hana, I think it's not just the artstyle, but also the overall genre. Even the director stated at first that he thought it was more suited for live-action than animation. So the fact that it doesn't appeal to the hardcore anime collectors isn't really that surprising -- I don't think they expected that in the first place. But I'd also say, with that genre, so much of it rides on the story and execution. With a show like Henneko, or Railgun 2, or OreImo 2, you have established fanbases and a very clear sense of what to expect from the show (and a pretty high likelihood of getting about what they expect). But with Aku no Hana, I think even the manga readers aren't too sure what to expect or if they're going to like the way it's handled. The crowd who appreciates the show just for its artistic value isn't necessarily going to be the sort to rush in a pre-order months before the disc release anyway. I think there's a lot of "wait and see".

So, yeah... there are reasons.

Edit: In addition to what 4Tran also said, which I no longer need to add.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhl88

Fix'd... the Blu-Ray sales were quite low...

I think it didn't need "fixing"; that was implied by the statement. The point was that saying a show "failed" doesn't depend on our definition, but the production committee's own metrics. They're not necessarily all under the impression that their show will sell tens of thousands of Blu-Rays in the first place. Sometimes the anime mainly exists (and was commissioned) to advertise something else.

Aku no Hana failing is a sad state for animation. Fractale, Shin Sekai Yori and now Aku No Hana. No country for artistic anime.

Aku no Hana is competing against Raildex and Oreimo 2, and Shin Sekai Yori have had very bad timing because it was against Psycho Pass (riding on the success of Urobuchi's brand), Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (we expected it to do moderately well. But it was doing very well, likely the fans' reaction to an obvious work of love from the director of the anime) and, the least expected, Girls Und Panzer (nobody expected it to do that good, and tbh it's one of the most mindboggling one).

Customers' pockets are not exactly deep, and due to the prices of the BR/DVD they have to make decisions. Fun and entertainment, and possibly rewatch value, are usually one of the criteria that are used when you invest in a DVD/BR collection. Not "artistic value" or "artsyness". Stuff like "Pulp Fiction", Nolan's "Batman" trilogy or "The Hangover" are the kind of DVD that you will most likely in the average Joe's collection, not your european arthouse movie. Just guess which ones between Raildex, Oreimo and Aku no Hana are the most likely to provide "fun" and "entertainment" rather than "artistic merits"?

It can commercially work (case in point: Shinbo's distinctive style) and it can commercially fail. Even when it works, it can take some time to really build up a sizable customer-base (as was the case with Shinbo's distinctive style). It's unrealistic to expect experimental animation to always resonate with the anime customberbase.

I think it didn't need "fixing"; that was implied by the statement. The point was that saying a show "failed" doesn't depend on our definition, but the production committee's own metrics. They're not necessarily all under the impression that their show will sell tens of thousands of Blu-Rays in the first place. Sometimes the anime mainly exists (and was commissioned) to advertise something else.

Wasn't it 2000-3000 in sales?

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Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

Are you referring to the "Manabi Line"? That's basically folklore. Someone in the production said at one point that Manabi Straight just barely broken even, and so people looked at the average DVD sales from the chart and decided that was an arbitrary "break-even point". But the entire production breaking-even may have been from more than just DVD sales, so we don't even know that it means anything. You also can't guess at profit until you have a grasp of the cost (and the actual production of the animation isn't usually the largest expense). Even if you did only consider DVD sales, you also have to consider the number of volumes and the MSRP of each (Manabi Straight was 7 volumes, one of them OVA) to figure out the total revenue. Considering most shows are also diversified over a large number of media formats, we really have no way of knowing whether a production really breaks even or not. The best evidence is typically if a show gets a sequel, but even that may not apply in certain cases.

The point was more that the rules for every show are different, because each show has its own unique budget and cost recovery plan. They don't all need the same number of BD/DVD sales to break even.

Actually I consider it somewhere at 4000 (12 episodes) to 6000 (24 episodes) as break even.

Nvm I checked it:
Fractale was 883. It can even be used to compare other anime... 1 frt = 883 sales

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Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

Eventhough Relentlessflame has already said this: not every serie has the same "break-even point".
Series such as Fate/Zero most likely would have had a much higher number , because of it's higher spendings on animation, than let's say girls und panzer.

Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

Wait, why do you keep just adjusting the imaginary figure you think seems reasonable as a "global rule" and completely missing the point that there is no global rule?

XD I'm only using the small number cause Japanese prices xD. Easy to break even when discs costs.... Around $65 with 2 episodes. 7000 yen to 4000 sales would be a certain amount)

__________________

Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

XD I'm only using the small number cause Japanese prices xD. Easy to break even when discs costs.... Around $65 with 2 episodes. 7000 yen to 4000 sales would be a certain amount)

4000 yen would be mostly for DVD, From 6000 to 7000 yen would be the price of Bluray discs. A little higher if they comes with bonus. Those are usually one of the reasons people would want the "premium" releases.

With movies, this is an easy thing to determine, as there's no shortage of paid professional movie critics. The sum of their opinions on a movie determines if it's critically acclaimed or not. Personally, I'd say that if 80% or more of them give high praise to a particular movie, then it's fair to call that movie "critically acclaimed".

With anime, though, this is trickier, as there's not many people who are actually paid professional anime critics, to the best of my knowledge.

So, with anime, I see two possible approaches to "critically acclaimed":

1) We go strictly by what is said by those few who are paid, professional anime critics. In which case, Aku no Hana is critically acclaimed, by sheer virtue of what paid ANN critics said about it.

2) We treat every anime fan as a critic. In which case, "critically acclaimed" would probably be based on "high praise" MAL ratings and reviews.